Sonos' brand name has become synonymous with expensive streaming speakers, and the company is still riding its success in making this vision of connected audio equipment mainstream. Its latest speaker is the PLAY:5, a six-driver unit with dedicated amplifiers, touch controls, and a pairing system that lets you assign two units as left and right channels for a stereo sound effect. The PLAY:5 also has an accelerometer on board that recognizes the position it's placed in (horizontal, vertical on its right side or left side), and adjusts the sound and tuning so it's perfect for this configuration.

There's no exact availability date on the PLAY:5, except "this year," but price should be set at $499 in the US and €579 in Europe. Yikes. Those taxes and duties aren't helping our European friends at all. It'll come in black and white color variations.

The next item on Sonos' announcement list is Trueplay. That's the company's fancy way of saying that their app and speaker will work together to provide you with as true of a reproduction of the original recording as possible, in all of its perfection and all of its flaws. Trueplay will let Sonos speakers adapt their tuning to recreate exactly what the artist intended for their song to sound like. It's a software-based take on audio improvement, going one step further than engineering and hardware.

Unfortunately, Trueplay is only compatible with the iOS application for now. Regarding Android support, the company's FAQ mentions:

Although we extensively tested with Android phones and tablets, we could not ensure a consistent and reliable Trueplay experience. We will continue to explore the use of Android devices for Trueplay tuning, but can’t confirm that it will be supported at this time.

If you're an Android user, I guess you'll have to cross your fingers and hope that the company manages to find a solution that suits its standards. For now, you still have access to the regular app and speakers and you'll have to make do listening to a non-optimized version of your music. Like you have done for decades so far. Such is the life.

Source: Sonos Blog, PLAY:5, Trueplay